


Tranquility

by trash_devil



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, General sad, Hawke needs a Break, M/M, Tranquil!Anders, and yet Things keep Happening, he just wants to be Gay with his chaos boyfriend, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-12 10:00:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16870903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trash_devil/pseuds/trash_devil
Summary: Anders turns Tranquil.Hawke knows he would rather die. But he can't do it.





	Tranquility

Everything stopped.  
That was the easiest way to describe it. Everything he wanted, everything he believed in—it shattered, fragmented into incomprehensible alien geometries, then ceased to matter at all.  
He rose to his feet when the templars urged him to. They seemed no less wary of him than they were before. Perhaps it was because that smiling serenity looked so wrong on his face, or perhaps he had caused enough damage that they still feared the bite of magic he no longer had.  
They needn’t have feared. He did not resist the shackles and chains. He let them buffet him this way at that, moving along with their flow rather than trying to beat back the river.  
He was paraded in the streets like an animal, like a warning, and then one templar broke off to lead him by the chain to a place he knew well.

“One freshly tamed mage for one Serah Hawke,” the templar said when the door opened. “That’ll be twenty sovereigns.” She examined him with distaste, then, somewhat reluctantly, held out her hand for payment.  
Hawke nodded numbly and deposited the coins into her open palm.  
“Here’s your pet,” she said disdainfully as she handed him the chain. As soon as he took it, she wiped off her hands on a bolt of cloth as if handling a mage left some residue on her fingers. “Mage-lover,”she spat and turned away.  
Hawke tugged his property inside and shut the door. Now out of public view, he slumped against the wall and let the chain slip from his grasp. “Seriously?” he asked, “Seriously?” He kept repeating the word in some vain hope that the universe would decide that no, it wasn’t serious, and he would wake up from this mess and everything would be normal again.  
He had been hoping for that for the past few years, but the world kept piling up one event after another like he was some sort of cosmic plaything. And now this.  
“Anders, the great rebel mage, now a Tranquil templar slave!” He wanted to laugh. Or maybe cry.  
“But, Serah Hawke, I do not belong to the templars,” Anders pointed out calmly, “You have purchased me fairly.”  
“As if that makes it any better!”

—————

Becoming Tranquil was a fate worse than death. He remembered his sister saying that. Karl, too. Hell, Anders himself had said he’d rather die.  
But, even as he thumbed the edge of the knife to test its sharpness, he knew he wouldn’t do it. He couldn’t.  
Because waking up next to an empty shell was better than waking up next to no one, because even if the hand he held was slack and unfeeling it was still warmer than none, because he still clung to some vague hope that maybe some shred of the man he had loved was still inside him.  
“Anders, why do you stay with me?” he asked.  
“I am yours,” Anders replied.  
Hawke felt his heart flutter at those words, even though he knew it was not a declaration of devotion but of fact. He owned Anders, not as a lover or a slave or even an animal, but as he would own a piece of furniture.  
“Would you still be if the templars came for me?”  
“They have no reason to, Serah Hawke. Do not ponder on impossibility.”  
“Can you at least imagine? Hypothesize? Anything?”  
Anders paused, his dull eyes fixated on nothing. “I suppose I could hypothesize,” he conceded. “I urge diplomacy before battle, but should they prove unreasonable, I will protect you.”  
Hawke wrapped his arms around the man’s waist. “I love you,” he mumbled.  
He received no reply.


End file.
